March 2020 Memories

Just because we're social distancing doesn't mean we should become socially distant.

School was out yesterday, which meant I got to deliver my "Cartooning Lessons" presentation and workshop at the Middletown Public Library to a very good-sized crowd of kids. I think there were about thirty. It went really well, and I think they all had a good time, but this represented the first time I've ever done a repeat event. This library was the first place I ever took my slideshow, and holds a very special place in my heart because of it, but also, it meant a couple of the children present had seen a lot of it before (I continually add, update, and revise the presentation, so there was some new stuff, but the "bones" were the same).

It has me thinking it might be time to develop an alternate slideshow.

A lot of my current presentation focuses on the benefits of maintaining a regular diary/journal practice as a way to find new ideas as a writer. Writing generates more writing. The idea for The Fifth Quarter came from a diary comic I'd written about my daughter playing basketball. I emphasize to the children that when I made that diary strip, I had no ideas for any sort of middle-grade graphic novel. I would never have had the idea if I wasn't in the habit of journaling. I think it's a good and powerful lesson to teach them. 

Now that most of these kids are emerging from Life During the Pandemic, I think it might make a good presentation to put something together that talks more specifically about how writing in the moment helps us remember.

The above comic strip was one I originally created in March 2020. I redrew it and colored it for this Patreon, but also because I'm thinking it's the kind of thing that might work well in a slideshow along these lines. The pandemic was painful, but that doesn't mean I should fill a presentation for children with comics reminding us only of that pain. This moment in the woods was a Very March 2020 moment. It's a funny strip, but most of us I imagine, don't quite feel that same alarm today as a stranger approaches that we all did back then.

Anyway, I'm just starting to get my mind around it.

'Zine Update

I believe the 'zines should arrive at my house tomorrow, so I should be able to start getting them into the mail and out to subscribers this week.